


maybe we were right to carry on

by theghostofjamespotter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4968088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theghostofjamespotter/pseuds/theghostofjamespotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry isn't the Chosen One and James has to learn to eat again.</p><p>Or - the "jily lives!" au where everything is still super sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe we were right to carry on

**Author's Note:**

> written for [jilytober 2k15](http://jilytober.tumblr.com/), with the theme of "jily lives."
> 
> well. if you know me, you know i'd still take that prompt and make it sad. sorry, y'all.
> 
> i think i covered all of the triggers in the tags. title from "alter the ending" by dashboard confessional, which would definitely be on a playlist for this au.
> 
> huge thank you to adriana/thearcherballet and tatum/pinkalldaypinkallnight for reading over this for me before posting! y'all are the best.

James is studying himself in the hallway mirror. When they’d moved into the house in Godric’s Hollow, he’d sworn that having a full length mirror in the hall was gaudy -- “Something my grandmother would do.” -- but Lily had insisted. Today, though, he might be a bit grateful for the opportunity to remove himself for a moment, and having the mirror in the hallway gives him just that.

He hears Harry cry out in the bedroom, followed by Lily’s gentle _shhhh_ and soft, reassuring cooing. She starts to hum to him and slowly, the cries fade out.

James swallows and adjusts his dress robes. They haven’t fit right in ages, hanging too loose nearly everywhere. He hasn’t exactly been eating well. Between being in hiding, and working for the Order, and funeral after funeral -- nothing seemed to let up on James’ anxiety and his body reflects that, his hip bones more obvious than they’ve ever been in his life. No one else notices, aside from Lily. Sometimes when they lay in bed, her fingers brush over him, and James can see the memories of the soft flesh that he used to have run across her face. It pains her, he knows it, but she never says a word.

Silence was the new status quo in the Order. There was already enough that they had to deal with. Little things, like James not eating, fell to the wayside, to be handled after the war.

Wouldn’t that be just his luck, though, after everything, to die of accidental stress starvation?

He looks in the mirror, but his robes are as good as they’ll get. They’re loose and that’ll have to be fine for now. Besides, the confrontation with his own reflection has left him suddenly starving. He’s hungry more than anything else at the moment, and he thinks that’s probably the first time that’s happened since he left Hogwarts.

James decides to celebrate this little victory. There’s a loaf of pumpkin bread wrapped on the kitchen counter and he cuts himself a thick slice, smears butter over it, and is lost for a moment in taste of pumpkin. It doesn’t feel like dirt in his mouth and that’s another first. He finishes the slice in three massive bites.

“You’re eating.” Lily is in the kitchen now, Harry nested onto her chest, still as can be.

“I thought we weren’t talking about my eating,” James says, only half-joking, while licking his fingers clean.

“We weren’t talking about your _not-eating_. Your _eating_ , however, is still on the table.”

James’ upper lip twitches. “On the table. Clever.”

“Thought you’d appreciate that one.” Lily leans down and kisses James right above his eyebrow and he breathes in deep, latching on to the mix of smells from Lily and Harry. Lily has used the same perfume since she was fourteen and that mix of jasmine and vanilla is irrevocably tied up in his head with the memory of their first kiss. But there’s a new scent in the mix now, the newborn Harry smell, that at the moment is a very clean scent. Soft. It makes James feel warm.

He kisses the top of Harry’s head, the child’s hair already long and dark and sticking up every which way. He looks at his son and back up to his wife and thinks that he’s never been more in love with anyone in the entire world.

“You ready, then?” he asks Lily, wrapping his arms around her waist. She nods against him and tucks Harry into her arms between the two of them. Together, they apparate to Hogwarts.

It was the only place that could feasibly conceal the mass number of witches and wizards anticipated to attend the Longbottoms’ funeral. Frank and Alice had been well loved, but it wasn’t just for that reason they planned for a crowd. Their small boy, Neville, would be there, and -- tactless as it was, James thought -- everyone would be fighting to get a glimpse of the child who saved the magical world.

On October 30th, Devil’s Eve, Mundungus Fletcher broke his oath as secret-keeper to the Longbottoms, and provided Voldemort with their exact location. Sensing the weakness in his heart, Voldemort killed Mundungus as a thanks.

No one had given Mundungus a funeral.

The next night, Frank and Alice were dead. Murdered, protecting their son - the only one of them Voldemort truly saw as a threat. But when he turned his wand on that little boy, something happened.

Voldemort was gone. For good, it seemed. Neville was made an orphan, but he was alive.

On November first, the Potters came out of hiding.

No one was paying the Potters any attention today, however. Hardly anyone had really known why they had gone into hiding - most had likely just assumed it was for the same reason so many others had. Surely, they had done it to keep Lily and Harry safe.

James shudders, the cool November air chilling him and he pulls his robes tighter around his thin frame. With very few words exchanged between them, he and Lily find Sirius and Remus and Peter, and together, they find a place to sit together.

The service is a formal affair. Dumbledore himself gives an impassioned eulogy on the nobility of sacrifice. More than once, Neville cries out and James is surprised the reporters in the back don’t break their necks trying to get a good look at him. Harry has a hold on James’ pointer finger and James tries his best to focus on his own son.

It’s not over soon enough, though it does eventually end.

The Potters stand with Sirius, Remus, and Peter and watch the crowds dwindle. Lily keeps glancing over at tiny Neville, held in the arms of a severe looking woman who gives off the vibe that she might hex anyone who so much as looks at Neville the wrong way.

“Where is Neville staying now?” James asks.

Lily frowns and shifts her hold on Harry. “That’s his gran. Frank’s mum. She’s -- well...she’s not...” She trails off for a moment and James remembers how little Frank ever spoke of his mother and the one summer he came back with gold-brown bruises ringed around his upper arms. “She’s all he has, anyway.”

James nods.

“She won’t hurt him.” Sirius pips up. “Not with the whole bleeding country watching.”

“Or she’ll just get more creative,” Remus mutters and the weight of his words lays heavy on James’ chest. He instinctively looks to Harry, who had fallen asleep in Lily’s arms.

Peter cuts through everyone’s thoughts. “How did he do it?” he wonders aloud. “I mean, Frank and Alice, they couldn’t stop him, but Neville...he’s just a baby. _How?_ ”

“He was the Chosen One,” James says. He reaches over to Harry, cups his hand around his son’s tiny head, rubs over Harry’s hair. “I guess it was always going to be him. I don’t know how he did it, but I do know that he’s the only one who could have.”

What he doesn’t say is how they’d worried it would have been Harry. He doesn’t mention how Dumbledore hadn’t know which family was the one of which the prophecy spoke, which child could bring down the Dark Lord once and for all. And he doesn’t say that those caskets today could have been his and Lily’s.

The boys know this already. Peter had been their secret-keeper, even. So James doesn’t say it, because what good would come from discussing an attempt on the life of his child that never happened.

Harry is here. They’re alive. Frank and Alice are dead, but so is Voldemort.

The _what-ifs_ are wasted breaths.

The group says their goodbyes until they’re all heading in separate directions, but James and Lily find themselves wandering the Hogwarts grounds for a bit, eventually making their way toward Hogsmeade and the Hog’s Head Pub. They enjoy the respite from the chill of the grounds, climbing into a booth like they’re still the teenagers on a weekend visit.

James takes Harry from Lily and Harry yawns, eyes fluttering somewhere between sleep and not-sleep. James kisses the apple of Harry’s cheek, still rosy from the cold.

“Oh! Is this James Junior?” A woman’s voice calls over them and Madame Rosmerta is wiggling her fingers at Harry, absolutely beaming.

“Harry, actually.” Lily corrects.

“Oh good! I don’t think the world is quite ready for two James Potters.” She winks at Lily, who laughs.

“Cheers to that!”

“I’m right here.” James says and Rosmerta taps his arm with the back of her hand.

“Don’t pretend I’ve never kicked you out of here, Mr. Potter!”

“Aw, Rosmerta, I thought that was water under the bridge by now.” James ruffles his hair, a gesture nearly forgotten since he’d left school, and flashes Rosmerta a lopsided grin.

“Don’t try your tricks on me! I’m only being nice on account of the little one here.” She bends down and baby-babbles at Harry for a moment. “He’s a smiley one, he is. Don’t get too many like that these days.” She straightens back up. “Shall I fetch a round for you both, then?”

“Please,” Lily answers and Rosmerta heads back behind the bar.

For a moment, in Madame Rosmerta’s wake, James forgets that this isn’t just a normal Hogsmeade trip. His hands are warming up and Harry is gurgling in his lap and Lily -- just a moment ago, Lily had _laughed_. For just the briefest second, things were very nearly normal.

Lily reaches out and takes his hand in her own and when he meets her eyes, he knows that she forgot everything else for a moment, too. He flips his hand underneath hers and tugs her closer to him, until she’s tucked up under his arm. Lily fits herself into his side easily and James is grateful that these things still come to them naturally.

“So what now?” she asks, mouth against his chest.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I could play Quidditch.”

“You still want to play Quidditch?”

“Not really. Maybe? I don’t know.” He sighs into her hair. “What do you want to do?”

“I might write. For the _Prophet_ or something, maybe. Or doing legal writing for the Ministry. Marlene --” Lily’s voice cracks. She swallows and keeps going. “We looked it up when we were in school. It’s something I could be good at.”

“We don’t have to make any decisions right now. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Lily pulls away and James worries that he said something wrong until she takes his hand into hers. It’s a small act of reassurance, but it works. “I’m not worried about that -- about money or whatever. I’m worried about you and about us. We’re out of hiding and the Order is disbanded and you’re finally eating and, it’s like...James, we finally have a chance at something normal. Don’t you want that? Something normal?”

Her eyes are puffy from the funeral still, but James can see the distinct gloss of fresh tears. He lets go of her hand to cup her face and swipes his thumb over the crest of her cheek.

“The War was our whole lives, Lil,” he says. “It’s okay to not know what to do next. It’s okay to flounder a bit.”

She looks away from him. “What if it’s not over?”

“It is.” he says firmly. “You have to believe it is or you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“I’m still scared.”

“Me, too.”

Their butterbeer is delivered unceremoniously but stays on the table, untouched. For a while everything is silent, even Harry, who is still propped up in James’ lap. Lily’s eyes are closed and James keeps brushing over her cheek. He wishes he could know what she’s thinking, but he also know what it’s like to have thoughts that are hard to share. So he waits.

When she opens her eyes, the traces of tears are gone. “Do you really think you could play Quidditch now?”

James laughs. “Dunno. My knees aren’t quite as good as they used to be. Reckon the Cannons would still take me, though.”

Lily pulls a face like she smelled something sour. “You’d look dreadful in orange.”

“I would make orange look good. _Witch Weekly_ would declare orange as the next big fashion trend.” James takes a large gulp of his drink and lets it settle low into his stomach.

“Already planning _Witch Weekly_ article about yourself?”

“Already getting jealous?”

Lily laughs and James swears he will never get sick of that sound. “I’m thinking I should be looking for writing jobs at _Witch Weekly_ , then. _James Potter: Exposed! Quidditch Star Farts in His Sleep and Is Rubbish at Potions_.”

“Harry, do you hear your mother slandering my good name right now?”

Harry burps in response.

“Like father, like son,” Lily grins and she takes a sip of butterbeer.

“Maybe I won’t be a Quidditch star, then, if I have to worry about my wife spilling all of my secrets.” He lifts Harry off his lap and holds him sitting up in his arms instead. Lily scoots in close and lets Harry take her finger into his tiny fist. She’s still smiling, but there’s a sadness there, too. There might always be.

They lived. They’re alive. They’ve got a future and a little boy who smiles because he doesn’t know that there’s ever been a reason not to.

James kisses Lily’s forehead. “We’ll figure something out,” he mumbles against her.

She tips her head up and catches his lips with hers. “We’ve got time.”

**Author's Note:**

> like i said. i'm sorry.
> 
> yell at me on [tumblr.](http://stereokink.tumblr.com)


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